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Last Updated: Jul 23rd, 2008 - 12:15:19 |
In recent years, there have been some strange happenings in nature, especially those involving the sudden death of birds and disappearance of bees. In response, some scientists have sounded the alarm, declaring that the disappearance of bees portends a similar fate for human beings. In “The Happening,” director-writer M. Night Shyamalan offers one scary “what-if” scenario and makes us confront how differently we look at species death when it involves humans.
Effective horror movies keep us in suspense by showing us as little of the monster as possible and showing us, instead, the monster’s terrible impact. For example, if the director of “Cloverfield,” had shown us that giant dinosaur-like creature at the start, we would have considered the flick a remake of “Godzilla” and walked out of the theater.
Shyamalan is obviously a master of this technique of suspense and, in “The Happening,” he takes it to the extreme. If anything is fingered as the monster in this film, it is the rustling of trees, bushes and grasses. When the very air we breathe might be toxic, when something in the air renders us confused and, then, destroys our natural instinct for self-preservation, then the monster turns out to be within—and scarier than any new creation from the special effects crew.
The monster-within theme, of course, takes Shyamalan back to his amazing debut, “The Sixth Sense.” Like that film, “The Happening” is startlingly void of cheesy clichés. Because the monster is within and unseen, the horror doesn’t proceed as might be expected in any other movie, or with any other director. Shocking events just happen. People do the opposite of what we expect them to do. They do horrible things to themselves—all in broad daylight and in plain sight.
Actor Mark Wahlberg, who plays a high school science teacher in Philadelphia, turns in just the right portrayal of a man trying to apply what he teaches to the apocalypse unfolding around him. Similarly, John Leguizamo, as a math teacher at the same school, calculates percentages and chances that his traveling wife will be endangered by whatever is in the air. Most of the film is shot at fairly close range, almost as if the characters are on a stage, so there is little room for error in the performances or dialogue.
Shyamalan does provide room, however, for speculation about what is causing this “happening” along the East Coast of the United States. He presents us several options to consider but leaves us with questions about the possible impact of terrorism, man-made technology, plants or the government in the catastrophe. Just as the film “The Day After Tomorrow” focused on the impact of global warming, “The Happening” attempts to depict the real horror humans may bring about due to some degradation of or manipulation of the environment.
This is do-it-yourself horror.
This review also appeared on Tom Joyner's BlackAmericaWeb.com,/i>
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